You think that disbanding the police sounds semi-reasonable? (I think that starting by disbanding the police union, so that they can't protect neer-do-wells in uniform is where to start, but that's a side issue.) Then you're (I presume) on the left, and you are losing trust in the system. Which is my point.
The US is approaching the highest rate of voter turnout since 1900 - during a pandemic no less - that doesn't happen if most people have lost faith in the system. If anything, a lot of people who might have, got religion over the last four years.
But that's not what they argue, is it?
I've seen calls to refund the police as a slogan that points out that it's far more effective to use resources on social policies that stop social problems from happening than wasting those resources mitigating avoidable problems. One of the textbook examples is homelessness, whose root cause is lack of a social safety net that helps people with mental problems cope with their condition instead of throwing them in jail. The other one is drug abuse, where it's far more cost effective to treat addictions as diseases than to throw drug addicts in jail.
The only instances I ever saw of calls being made to disband police departments were due to rampant systemic corruption problems affecting some police departments which are too entrenched to salvage, and how the US has already a long history of tackling that type of problem by replacing the whole police department with a brand new one.
But I think you're still wrong. The way the Democratic Party dealt with Bernie Sanders (twice) is not the sign of a party that believes in the system.
The slowly increasing economic far-left & antifa are just a complete loss in faith of our system and the systems such as voting inside it.
How is 50% of a nation's eligible voting population thinking that their future government is illegitimate not a societal failure?
You gotta hand it to Putin. Two more election cycles like this and the US is toast and he never had to fire. a single shot. Turns out all you need to do is weaponize social media and use it against a country with low education standards like the US and you win.
Meanwhile we are building multi-billion super-carriers and investing in stealth technology and all Putin needs is a troll farm in St Petersburg whispering that America's biggest threat is BLM, Socialists and Obama/Biden/Democratic boogeyman.
There is no "rural half" and "urban half." Trump's rural support is primarily from white voters, but his support among other demographics is far lower. Black people seem to be voting for Biden in droves this time, and not all of them are in cities. And per capita, the urban half is closer to 80% versus the rural 20%.
The narrative of "urban vs. rural" is populist propaganda, intended to imply that a solid half of the US supports Trump and that he represents the entirety of "rural" American identity, which isn't true.
Seems to be away from the topic right? There is half the country supporting a candidate like trump because they are disgruntled of the other candidates. That was the point, and you don't get to wash your hands off the fact that the country is divided.
I'm implying that race and class divisions are more relevant in American culture and politics than rural vs. urban, yes. As is right vs left. The narrative that the primary motive for Trump's support is a deep cultural anger by rural Americans against city-dwellers is entirely populist fiction.
>There is half the country supporting a candidate like trump because they are disgruntled of the other candidates.
Only about half of eligible voters even voted in 2016, and only half of them voted for Trump, a slight majority voted for Clinton. And eligible voters comprise about a third of the total population. Even if you took for granted that all rural voters support Trump, and all urban voters don't, Trump supporters would still be in the minority.
>and you don't get to wash your hands off the fact that the country is divided
Are you trying to imply there's blood on my hands? What precisely are you implying that I should be ashamed of?
Your increasingly accusatory tone makes me not want to continue this conversation further.
~46%
> a slight majority voted for Clinton.
A plurality (~48%).
Also, urban vs rural may be propaganda, but it’s also simply true from a statistical point of view.
That’s a leap. Voters aren’t that ideologically coherent. A voter can vote for Trump, approve of Trump and not believe his every word about the electoral system.
If anything, their voting for Trump implicitly endorsed it.
These are domestic problems and much larger and longer stemming than just Russia starting all of it. Things were this bad before Trump, but Trump ripped off the facade of "decency".
Many claimed, and still do, that the Electoral College system is unfair (it was established to give Southern slave state’s additional representation vis-à-vis the 3/5ths compromise) and unneeded.
Actually, no. But your liberal strawman is as expected as it is tedious.
No, the "both-sides are equal" thing isn't going to work. On the one hand, you have a quote by Hillary Clinton which is proving kind of correct in hindsight, on the other, literal armed mobs of Trump supporters threatening to stop the counting of votes by force, lawsuits, attempts to "override" the vote, and hoaxes perpetrated by Trump's own family.
These things are not equal.